Did You Know...

... that the Colorado Skydiving League has a new leader?

Colorado Skydiving League founder Keith Walter with his 2005 team Raeford Fury

posted Mar 4th, 2006 -
The Colorado Skydiving League is back for the 2006 season with a new management and additional energy. Travis Roth continues the great work that Brian Vande Krol has done for the league throughout the 2005 season. The new league director explained that Brian Vande Krol has a very busy year ahead of him, including coaching in Colorado's new SkyVenture wind tunnel. The upcoming workload forced him to ask Travis Roth to continue with the CSL work.

Travis Roth has picked up the CSL ball with a lot of motivation and energy. He is a young and passionate skydiver who started jumping about a year and a half ago. Travis Roth says that he is interested in learning as much as he can about Formation Skydiving, and he wants to share with others what he has learned.

Samer Haija with team Sparkimage by: Omniskore

The position as the CSL Director will offer him the greatest opportunity to share his passion with other new skydivers, and he can also connect the dots between the experienced skydivers he has met on the way and the FS Competition community in Colorado.

Travis Roth has already spent more than ten hours in the wind tunnel with coaching from Perris Performance Plus and Airspeed members, along with coached jumps in the training camp programs. He says that he really enjoys learning and pushing his own limits.

Keith Walter launched the Colorado Skydiving League in 2000 after running a CSL test meet in the fall of 1999. He continued throughout the 2001 season and handed the league management over to Samer Haija for the 2002 season. Samer Haija directed the Colorado league in 2002 and 2003.

Brian Vande Krol with Arizona Directeimage by: Omniskore

There were some attempts to continue the league in 2004 after Samer Haija had to step down due to his own busy work, training and competition schedule. However, nothing materialized for the 2004 season, and the Colorado Skydiving League went into hibernation.

Brian Vande Krol, who had already competed in Colorado when Keith Walter launched the league in 2000, brought the league back to life for the 2005 season, and he was successful. He trained and competed with Arizona Directe at the same time, which did not make his life as the CSL Director much easier. It was no surprise that he was looking for help.

He found the right person in Travis Roth who did not hesitate to take full action to prepare the league for the 2006 season. A new and separate CSL website already provides a lot of information for the regional participants.

Air Force Academy team CAD

The new CSL Director currently works on networking the tams and competitors in his region. He has already found full support by the only scheduled CSL host for the 2006 season, the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center. Travis Roth reported that he was mostly impressed with the skydiving centers's efforts to help the beginners:

"After visiting many drop zones, one of the things that impresses me the most about Mile High is how much the experienced jumpers are always trying to help out the students and make them part of the family. I am also impressed by the 2006 goal to retain the students by offering financing and innovative training."

Travis Roth and the CSL host in the mountains also plan to combine the activities to make for attractive events: "There are world class swoopers, freeflyers and RW jumpers hanging around together. It will be interesting, as we could see on some weekends the jump planes dropping off a load of pro swoopers for a competition, on the way up for a 4-way competition - all at the same time."

Teams already form for the CSL 2006 season. The NSL News just introduced a new AA/Intermediate Class line-up of the Air Force Academy, CAD. Steve Szeder (Inside Center), Ann Klein (Point), Kevin Chapmann (Tail), Dave Boes (Outside Center) and Byron Dormire (Video) is a new combination of CSL jumpers with prior competition experience.

This new team has planned for 225 training jumps and additional tunnel training. Former CSL Director Brian Vande Krol and AZ Directe member Courtney Frasch will work with the team, which will be competing in the AA/Intermediate Class at the CSL/NSL meets and the USPA Nationals 2006.